Security Systems News - Leigh Johnsonhttp://securitysystemsnews.com/taxonomy/term/2798
enResi grows fast at Custom Alarm http://securitysystemsnews.com/article/resi-grows-fast-custom-alarm
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<div class="field-item even">Interactive services a key driver for growth in Custom Alarm’s residential business</div>
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<div class="field-item even" property="schema:datePublished dc:date"><span class="date-display-single" property="schema:datePublished dc:date" datatype="xsd:dateTime" content="2013-10-09T00:00:00-04:00">10/09/2013</span></div>
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<div class="field-item even" rel="schema:author dc:creator">Tess Nacelewicz</div>
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<div class="field-item even" property="schema:articleBody content:encoded"> <p>ROCHESTER, Minn.—Now in its 45th year, Custom Alarm, based here, is finding residential security to be one of the fastest growing aspects of its business, said Nikki Johnson, the company’s vice president and director of marketing.</p>
<p>Johnson cited interactive services as an important driver of that growth.</p>
<p>“We’ve sort of changed our model like a lot of security companies have,” she explained. “Back in the day it was security alarm, fire alarm or monitoring, that was it, and now you’ve got all the lifestyle management tools, you’ve got home automation, you’ve got your remote access. So our monthly recurring is so much higher than it ever was because people don’t have home phones and they’re doing wireless communication.”</p>
<p>Company CEO Leigh Johnson started the company in 1968 in his basement. Today, the full service security company has nearly 70 employees, its own UL-listed central station and about 5,500 monitored accounts. It serves customers in southern Minnesota, northern Iowa and western Wisconsin. Custom Alarm is family owned and run—Nikki Johnson is Leigh Johnson’s daughter and his other daughter, Melissa Brinkman, is COO.</p>
<p>At the end of 2012, the company had revenues of more than $10 million and RMR of nearly $249,000.</p>
<p>Through the decades, Custom Alarm has adapted with the times, Nikki Johnson said.</p>
<p>And to grow its residential business, she said, Custom Alarm has “been trying some new things in residential this year and really having a lot of success with them.”</p>
<p>For example, she said, “we’ve been creating some starter packages. And this year, for the first time, we were running monthly specials and promoting those. So we would get people interested in a $199 system and they’d say, ‘I didn’t know it was that reasonable,’ so we’d call and go out and have an appointment and they’d end up buying a system three times that much” [when they learned about other affordable options beyond the basic package]. So we got in the door and got them interested with some lower level packages and the higher monthly.”</p>
<p>Also, Johnson said, “we’ve really had some success in promoting these specials in different ways, like doing some radio ads and Facebook ads … pushing it out on social media and really doing some additional marketing to the residential market.”</p>
<p>Custom Alarm also is reaching out to existing customers, such as ones they’ve had 10 years or more, to encourage them to upgrade by adding interactive services and also save money by switching their landlines for wireless, Johnson said. “It’s just a win-win for everybody,” she said.</p>
<p>Access control and CCTV also are strong growth areas for the company, Johnson said.</p>
<p>To thank the community for its support over the years, Custom Alarm hosted members of the Rochester Area Chamber of Commerce at a recent celebration of its anniversary. Johnson said that in addition to long-term customers, Custom Alarm also has a number of long-term employees, some of whom have worked for the company for more than three decades.</p>
<p>“In our industry when you have customers who trust you to help secure their homes and their businesses, you take a lot of pride in that, and also when you have employees who come to work and stick around,” Johnson said. “It’s just wonderful to see the long-term dedication these people have had."</p> </div>
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<span property="dc:title" content="Resi grows fast at Custom Alarm " class="rdf-meta element-hidden"></span>Wed, 09 Oct 2013 17:53:19 +0000Leah Hoenen16865 at http://securitysystemsnews.comhttp://securitysystemsnews.com/article/resi-grows-fast-custom-alarm#commentsCustom Alarm’s fire business growinghttp://securitysystemsnews.com/article/custom-alarm%E2%80%99s-fire-business-growing
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<div class="field-item even">Company hires new fire project manager</div>
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<div class="field-item even" property="schema:datePublished dc:date"><span class="date-display-single" property="schema:datePublished dc:date" datatype="xsd:dateTime" content="2011-07-05T09:44:15-04:00">07/05/2011</span></div>
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<div class="field-item even" rel="schema:author dc:creator">Tess Nacelewicz</div>
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<div class="field-item even" property="schema:articleBody content:encoded"><p>ROCHESTER, Minn.—Custom Alarm, based here, started out 43 years ago in the basement of the home of the company’s president and CEO Leigh Johnson, whose background was in sound.</p>
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Today, the company of more than 75 employees still offers sound solutions, but also is a full-service security company and owns and operates its own UL-listed central station, and has more than 5,000 monitored accounts.</p>
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And one of the fastest-growing areas of the business is fire, according to Nikki Johnson, Custom Alarm’s director of marketing and an owner of the company, a Notifier by Honeywell dealer that also has branch offices in St. Paul and Winona, Minn. </p>
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She told <em>Security Systems News</em> the fire side of the business helped Custom Alarm, also known as Custom Communications Inc., weather the recession. “We do so much fire, and that was something that’s not an option for people, it’s a necessity,” she said.</p>
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The fire part of business is doing so well that the company, about 90 percent of whose work is commercial, this spring hired a project manager to work specifically on fire projects with a large national retail customer of Custom Alarm.</p>
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Johnson said Custom Alarm had for about five years done only CCTV work for that company, the name of which Custom Alarm cannot disclose. But last year Custom Alarm also had the opportunity to do some fire jobs with that customer, and wants to do more of those jobs, which the customer puts out to bid individually.</p>
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“We decided we’re going to commit to this and bid all the jobs with fire,” Johnson said. To do that, the company decided it needed a special crew dedicated to that retail customer and in April <a href="http://www.securitysystemsnews.com/article/custom-alarm-hires-monica-nigon-project-manager" target="_blank">announced the hiring of Monica Nigon</a> as project manager to lead that group. </p>
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“Monica fit the bill perfectly,” Johnson said. “She has great certifications … and great technical experience.”</p>
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Also, Johnson added, “It’s nice to see a woman in a normally male-dominated industry.”</p>
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In addition to Nigon, the company, which primarily serves customers in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa, also has a project manager for its regular fire customers, such as banks, and a project manager for a second large, unnamed commercial customer for whom Custom Alarm just does fire jobs, Johnson said.</p>
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<span property="dc:title" content="Custom Alarm’s fire business growing" class="rdf-meta element-hidden"></span>Tue, 05 Jul 2011 13:44:15 +0000legacy_editor14773 at http://securitysystemsnews.comhttp://securitysystemsnews.com/article/custom-alarm%E2%80%99s-fire-business-growing#comments